Round Two
by Beboppin' Betty
Summary: She's back and she doesn't like what she sees.


Disclaimer: I don't own The O.C. et al.

A/N: I know it's disjointed and leaves out explanations of why and how, but that's the nature of this beast.

The Cohens were gone

The Cohens were gone. The maid who'd answered the door said she'd never heard of the Cohen family and that she'd worked for the house's present owner for five years.

The day only got weirder after that.

The trailer park where she'd lived with her mother and sister was suddenly a strip mall and she couldn't seem to find a single familiar face in any of the teens at the beach or the mall or even when she passed by the Harbor campus.

A woman who was the spitting image of Holly Fischer had caught her attention sitting on the terrace of an unfamiliar restaurant, except that woman was far too old to be Holly and was sharing the table with a boy bordering on adolescence who looked too much like her to be a step-child.

Her father's phone number connected her to a Chinese takeout place.

The Bait Shop had undergone a facelift and was now some kind of family restaurant, and as she passed by that old hangout on her way to the lifeguard tower that shared many of her intimate thoughts, Marissa Cooper decided that one of two things had happened: she'd finally lost it completely or had taken something she shouldn't have. As she made herself comfortable against the sun-warmed boards of the shack to watch the sunset, she replayed the day from the very beginning and decided she was probably on a bad trip of some sort. After all, she didn't recall going to sleep the day before or just how she'd wound up at the Cohens' that morning.

Maybe she was actually just dreaming.

That option really made the most sense -- she'd hung out all day at Ryan's just yesterday. There was no possibility that they'd moved away years ago.

A dark-haired boy of eleven or twelve jogged by, flashing a quick, friendly smile at Marissa, and glanced back. Marissa watched as the boy's father struggled to keep up. "You trying to kill your old man?" he wheezed, and the kid took off faster. Marissa smiled and thought of her own dad. She startled when the father called, "Coop! Cooper, wait up!"

"Hey." A hand gently prodded her shoulder and she blinked awake, squinting in the glare of the early sun. A few droplets of water from the man's hair hit her cheek. He looked concerned. "You okay?"

Marissa pushed herself up from where she'd fallen asleep on the lifeguard tower and tried to work the kink out of her neck. Evidently she hadn't been dreaming and was still in this bizarro world. "Yeah. Thanks." She studied the man's familiar face and watched his expression morph in to confusion.

She tested out a theory. "Chili?"

His eyes widened. "Nobody's called me that in years." He sat back; Marissa saw he'd been surfing. "Goddamn, you look _exactly_ like a girl I used to know."

"Thank god," she sighed. "I'm not totally crazy….what do you mean 'used to know'? What _happened_? Why is everything different? Where the _hell_ is everybody?"

Chili narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?" he asked slowly; Marissa didn't note the suspicion in his voice.

"Chili, come on, it's me. Marissa." She didn't understand the look on his face then; why he was regarding her with such disgust. He scrambled to his feet. "That is one sick fucking joke, kid." When he stormed down to the sand, Marissa chased after him. "Wait! Please! It's not a joke, Chili. Why would it be a joke?" He didn't stop walking, but he looked back over his shoulder. "Because Marissa's dead."

* * *

The house was so…average. A two story with a cracked driveway, bicycles on the lawn and neighbours ten feet away on either side. Summer lived _here_? Marissa squared her shoulders and knocked -- the only way to find out if the address was wrong. After a moment footsteps thundered up the hall and the door swung inward. Marissa blinked at the two little boys with dark eyes and unruly curls. "It's not pizza!" the slightly bigger one yelled and abandoned his younger brother. She turned to leave when Summer's voice filtered out through the screen: "What have I told you about doing that, Nicky?"

The door squeaked, and struck Marissa as the most ridiculous thing about the situation. Summer Roberts would not live in a place where the screen door squeaked. She came face to face with her best friend and watched a thousand emotions flit through Summer's eyes. The two little boys' eyes. Summer hesitated. "Your Mom called." Then held the door for Marissa to step through.

Princess Sparkle and Captain Oats held places of honour among photos on the mantle. Apparently Seth and Summer had actually married. Marissa looked at images of them and not two but three little boys while Summer rounded the four Cohen men up and pushed them out the door. She circled the living room and saw Sandy and Kirsten and a young blonde girl smile back at her from various frames. A recent Chrismukkah photo featured all the Cohens. And Ryan. And Taylor Townsend?

There were framed diplomas on the wall. Marissa scanned Seth's from the Rhode Island School of Design and wondered what had happened to his Brown aspirations. Her eyes jumped to the next frame and found Summer's name first, then the Masters in Environmental Science. Then the Brown University crest. Marissa's stomach dropped a bit.

"Coop."

Marissa turned and forced a smile. "Hey Sum." And found herself squeezed in the arms of this stranger with her friend's face.

* * *

Kaitlin was sleek and sophisticated and exactly how Marissa would have pictured her sister grown up. Except she wasn't sipping Bellinis by her rich husband's pool in Newport. The door Marissa knocked on was in Texas…._Texas_….and Kaitlin was growling into her cell phone and clutching a deadly looking stiletto shoe when she answered. Marissa smiled weakly. The shoe dropped and the call was cut off and Kaitlin grinned from ear to ear. "God. _Marissa_!"

This was more uncomfortable than Summer's, and that had bordered on unbearable more than a few times. She perched on the edge of Kaitlin's couch and looked anywhere but into her sister's face. "So…" she ventured. "Texas?"

Kaitlin was distracted by her vibrating cell phone. "Headquarters," she murmured and tapped a few buttons. Marissa didn't understand the explanation.

"You know, work."

Right. Work. That grown up thing that she still didn't expect. What she expected less was that somehow her rebellious, somewhat criminal little sis had gone to college and majored in international business and finance and was being groomed to take over the oil empire of someone called _Bullit_.

Marissa wandered around Kaitlin's apartment hugging herself so tightly her fingers nearly met on the other side. Those damn pictures again. Her mother's college graduation; the boy from the beach who'd turned out to be her half-brother. Her own face smiling back from inside a gilded frame. She turned away and grasped for something to say. "So, are you married?"

"Please," Kaitlin snorted and was suddenly so much older than Marissa. "I work so much I barely have time to shave my legs."

"What about guys at work?" This she could do, talking boys with her sister.

"They're mostly Bullit's sons, and the twelve of them share the same ten brain cells. I see the head of accounting sometimes, but that's usually just about sex."

Marissa smiled tightly and wished for a cigarette.

* * *

She liked this house, that it was secluded but not gated and looked nothing like its neighbour. It was classy and subtle. She felt like Goldilocks choosing which bed was just right and tried to find something to prevent her walking up the drive.

He came to her. She watched the door open without having to knock; the way he stood there for a minute, arms hanging limp at his sides, and watched her back.

"Kaitlin called," he said after a stretch.

"You look the exact same," she said, knowing his thoughts mirrored hers except in a literal sense.

He wouldn't touch her, and all she could focus on was the absence of his hand on her back as they walked into his home. The décor was different than she'd have thought and reminded her of her summer visits to France. "It's nice in here."

"Taylor." He said, then looked slightly nauseous and tried not to meet her gaze. She felt like crying. "Ryan, it's okay. I wouldn't have expected you be alone forever."

"But _Taylor_…"

She reached out -- because she was desperate to touch him -- and squeezed his shoulder. "I saw the pictures at Summer's."

"And how was Summer's?"

Marissa grimaced. "Different. She's not my Summer." She watched him fidget and wondered when he'd become a fidgeter. "Everything's different," she muttered sulkily and flipped through a child's book sitting on the table. Then it hit her and she held the book up in silent accusation. Ryan looked positively miserable but proud all at the same time. "Lise. She's two."

Marissa's fingers burned and she dropped the book. "Where is she?"

"Taylor took her to Paris for a couple of weeks to visit some friends."

She wanted to smash the photo on the table of Taylor and the baby and _her_ Ryan looking sickeningly content together. She wanted Ryan to take her in his arms and kiss her. She badly, desperately wanted a drink.

"How are you here?" He was the first, the only to ask.

"Maybe this is Hell," she realized.


End file.
